A Sunday report from Reuters suggests that cloud computing services from Switzerland-based telco Swisscom might be the new Swiss bank account for some companies. In the wake of leaks from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, Swisscom, which is majority-owned by the Swiss government, has said that its cloud services might be more attractive to foreign companies seeking to keep business secrets away from prying eyes.

Instead of choosing a giant American provider that might have an NSA siphon of data (through the MUSCULAR program, for example) a company could store its data in the “Swiss Cloud” from Swisscom. The company says it could offer a level of security from government watchers unavailable elsewhere in the world.

Of course, that could only be true for data that moves locally in Switzerland. There are no guarantees of privacy as soon at the information crosses borders.

Swisscom's head of IT services Andreas Koenig told Reuters that Switzerland's strict privacy laws make it harder for outsiders to retrieve private information in a nebulously legal way. "Data protection and privacy is a long tradition in Switzerland, and that's why it's pretty difficult to get to something," Koenig said. Still, Swisscom is far from an impenetrable data haven. "If legal requirements are there and we are asked by the judge to obtain or deliver certain information then we would obviously have to comply with it,” Koenig said.

Reuters notes that “unlike in the United States, where the 2001 Patriot Act and the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) gives US intelligence agencies the power to carry out mass information gathering, Swisscom would have to receive a formal request from a prosecutor before allowing access to data.”

The ostensibly higher privacy standard has become an explicit pitch for Swisscom. On its website for its Dynamic Computing Services it writes (under the "Swissness" tab):

Are you hesitant about investing in cloud computing and concerned about the security of your sensitive data? At Swisscom your data is stored in a private cloud in our own state-of-the-art data centers here in Switzerland. We guarantee data protection and legal security in compliance with Swiss law. Access to personal and business-critical data is protected at all times, even from abroad.

Swisscom says its primary customers at the moment are Switzerland-based, including many banks, but it's growing its services in the hopes of accommodating more customers in the future. As Reuters reports, “Koenig declined to disclose how much Swisscom was investing in its cloud nor how much it was planning to charge potential clients for the service, but he said it would be competitive with other providers such as Amazon Web Services and International Business Machines.”